My first dabble into official off-road biking, I won’t say racing, that will be for other folk. I had ridden a similar distance off-road some time back, but the prospect of the event looming has had me on edge for a few days.

Victor Lucas took care of the arrangements, including ferrying me to and from home, booking the cave house! And having recently attended a first aid course, he was the ideal partner in case of any unforeseen mishaps. A lot of the photos here are Victor’s (thanks pal).

We arrived in Baza at around 5 on Friday evening and we made our way to our rented cave to check in. The area around Baza and Guadix in the Northern portion of Granada province is famous for the cave homes and the hillsides are riddled with them. Our cave «Cuevas El Guindas» was a real delight. Three caves in the complex, sharing a pool and garden area. Just about the most peaceful spot you could find.

Once we had dumped off our gear we jumped on the bikes and headed into Baza to find the start line, and some garlic for the pasta! We somehow found ourselves in an overgrown olive grove on our way back, looking for a shortcut. This proved fortuitous as there were three male Golden Orioles showing up nicely and calling from the tops of the olives. Back at the cave, we gave the pool a miss, the temperature was already in single digits and dropping fast as the sun went down. A big bowl of pasta and an early night after a quick chat with the neighbours who were also participating in the race. With an 8:00am start, we had to get breakfast in, tidy the cave and get our bikes into the van by 7:00. A flock of Beeaters had roosted in the Poplar trees right in front of the cave, and they gave us a wonderful wittering send off.

The race start was more relaxed than I had previously experienced riding sportives and Gran Fondos on the road bike. We had picked up a generous goodie bag, with spare inner tube and tyre levers, plus a pair of socks and the various gels and bars that you expect, the previous afternoon, and with our race numbers zip-tied to the handlebars we headed off up into the sierra with weak sun on our backs.

The route of the race takes you up into the sierra above Baza and then back down before looping around the desert of Gorafe and back. On the face of it, it didn’t look too challenging, with only 1600m of climbing over the 110kms, albeit this was the shorter of the two distances. The initial climb was a wide track gently climbing through cork oaks and then mainly pines. I didn’t take a lot of notice of the bird life because my poorly stowed pump started flapping around and snagging on the front wheel. That won’t happen in this year’s event.

Leaving the sierra behind us, there was a storm drain to get through to pass under the motorway, and then we were in the desert.

Luckily the rain stayed away until after this beautiful descent down into the canyon. Reaching the furthest point on the route there was a welcome feed station but no shelter from the now steady rain. I am sure there were plenty of birds around but my full concentration was on avoiding falling off on the long descents and not having to put a foot down on the tricky climbs out of the canyons. The sandy river beds were tough going, with the wheels not getting any traction, for the 2025 race I have got some more knobbly tyres to get me out of the quicksand!

All too quickly the route leaves the desert and flattens out as it passes through endless pastures with oak trees, and of course, the olive groves. This is fast terrain and it was a case of head down and push through the rain, back to Baza and the heated transit van.

It was a blast Utopia! It would be nice if it were to be sunny for the 2025 edition, which is only 10 days away as I write this. Whatever the weather, I can’t wait to get back to Baza.